Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to collaborative video sharing, and, in particular, to a system and method for synchronizing video playback on mobile devices.
Description of Related Art
Since the invention of digital cameras, recorded or live streaming digital videos have become an important source of information and knowledge that are widely accessible over the Internet. Combined with various forms of social media, video has become a medium for communication, interaction and collaboration between people. Mobile devices have been developed, including smartphones and tablets, with more computing power, advanced sensory functions, and faster wireless network connections, which offer API for developers to create new applications.
Video conferences that involve more than two participants are available on many mobile devices especially the high-end tablets equipped with cameras. In a conventional video conference, each device receives multiple video streams from the cameras of the other devices. Furthermore, a device can only control its own video views, not those of the other devices.
Social Television (Social TV) is a general term for technology that supports communication and social interaction in either the context of watching television, or related to TV content. Although Social TV incorporates viewer participation, Social TV focuses on how to combine social relations and interactions with TV experience. No known Social TV systems allow the viewer to synchronize TV content across televisions.
Interactive TV (ITV) refers to applications that allow the viewer to control content delivered with and through the television. Although ITV supports playback control on delivered videos, the control actions only apply to one television. In ITV, a viewer's action may influence the content delivered to other viewers, for example by voting. However, such influences are the result of aggregated actions from many viewers instead from one particular viewer.
Some social media web sites support social interactions with and around videos, such as live video streaming (i.e., “live casting”) and video sharing (e.g. YouTube), as well as video capturing and sharing on mobile devices. However, none of the known social media web sites that support social interactions with and around videos allow a user to control the playback of a video for a group.
Splitting a high-resolution video stream among two mobile phones arranged side-by-side to form a composed screen is known. Although this system uses protocols and algorithms to synchronize the half frames between the phones, it does not synchronize user playback control across the phones. Moreover, the approach assumes the phones are homogeneous and placed in close proximity.
Prototype systems to support real-time collaborative video annotations on desktop computers are known. In these systems, a group of users can annotate and share their annotations about the videos that they are watching in real-time. However, no method to synchronize playback controls across devices is described.
Google Plus also allows real-time synchronization of shared YouTube videos with its Hangouts tool on mobile phones. A Hangout user can start, stop, mute and un-mute a video and the action will be reflected in all web browsers. However, Google Plus works only for YouTube videos rather than any streaming video source. A further limitation is that the Hangout tool requires a Google Plus account to watch a video and can host only up to nine participants. Furthermore, the Hangout tool depends on a central Google Plus service.
Therefore, a need exists to provide improved collaborative video sharing by use of a system and method for synchronizing video playback on mobile devices, in order to ultimately provide improved customer satisfaction.